Tuesday, 4 April 2017

08:58 – It was 53.5F (12C) when I took Colin out around 0715 this morning, sunny and breezy. Today is to be the only nice day this week, followed by colder weather moving in and precipitation changing from rain to snow.

Barbara just took Colin to the vet for his annual checkup. This is a busy week for her. She’s volunteering at the bookstore this afternoon and has various other stuff going on all week. Friday, she drives down to Winston for a followup appointment with her doctor. She’s staying overnight with Frances and Al, and returning Saturday. It’ll be WWaP for Colin and me while she’s gone.

Kit sales remained pretty strong through late March, which is later than they usually fall off the cliff. Usually, mid-February through early June is very slow, things start to pick up in mid-June, and sales boom between July and mid-September. Oh, well. We’re running well ahead of last year at this time, and we can use a break.

I ordered another dozen 28-ounce cans of Keystone Pork from Walmart yesterday, along with ten 28-ounce cans of Keystone Beef chunks. That’s all Walmart would let me add to my cart. My guess is that they limit cart quantities to on-hand inventory, so I may have wiped out their supply of both.

Keystone Meats is not a large company, and with both Walmart and Amazon stocking their products, I suspect they’re having a hard time keeping up with demand. Amazon, as usual, prices their products much higher than Walmart does.

Keystone sells their canned meats direct at $75/dozen ($6.25/can) for everything except beef chunks, which are $85/dozen ($7.08/can), plus $20/case shipping. That takes the total to $7.92/can or $8.75/can for the beef chunks. Walmart prices the 28-ounce cans at $6.28 each, or $7.74 each for the beef chunks. When I checked Amazon yesterday, they were charging $10.77/can for the stuff Walmart sells at $6.28.

I’m still considering canning our own meat. Doing that would be cheaper than buying commercial canned meat, but the real reason I’m thinking about it is that it would expand our selection. Almost all commercial canned chicken, for example, is white meat, but we could can our own dark meat, as well as stuff like sausage that’s difficult or impossible to find commercially.

Right around the time we moved up here, there was a new building being built out on US21, only a couple hundred yards from our house. It was originally a retail meat processor. Bring your own cow or deer or whatever, and they’d butcher and package it for you. Apparently, they didn’t get enough trade to stay open, so they’re in the process of converting it to a new business, the Alleghany General Store. Barbara is keeping an eye on it as a substitute for Lowes. I suspect they’ll continue the butchering/packaging part of the business, so that may be a good nearby source for locally-sourced bulk meats that we can can ourselves.

And the USPS carrier just showed up to pick up a kit. I was expecting Lori, but she had a new substitute running this part of her route this morning. Tina, a nice young woman, is learning Lori’s route so that she can work as a substitute when Lori’s off. She has an official-looking magnetic placard on her car door that reads “USPS feMAIL Carrier”.

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44 Comments and discussion on "Tuesday, 4 April 2017"

  1. Miles_Teg says:

    Why would you want to can dark chicken meat? I don’t object to dark chicken meat, but always buy breast (or drumsticks) when making things myself.

    As to canning, I’d be concerned about not doing it properly, and the opportunity cost of my time.

  2. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    White meat chicken is dry and tasteless compared to dark meat chicken.

    I’m not too concerned about safety. As long as you follow USDA procedure, it’s safe enough. You can add suspenders to that belt by cooking the canned meat thoroughly before eating it, which will kill any Clostridium bacteria and toxins that are in the canned meat. Simply heating the food through to 194F (90C) kills bacteria and toxins almost instantly. The bacteria and toxins are pretty fragile. It takes 250F (121C) in a pressure canner for an extended time to kill Clostrium spores, but spores are harmless to adults.

    As to opportunity cost, it’s not a big deal. Our pressure canner processes nine quart jars at a time, which is about 18 pounds of meat. Preparing the raw meat takes a while, depending on the type of meat, but then it just goes into the pressure canner for the specified time. As long as you can maintain pressure, the actual canning process doesn’t require anything but occasional checking to verify that pressure stays up to spec.

  3. Denis says:

    “Bring your own cow or deer or whatever, and they’d butcher and package it for you.”

    I gather one can’t easily buy game meat in the US. Perhaps you could get friendly with a local hunter and get some venison that way…? Doing one’s own butchery is not difficult, but it is messy, and heavy/troublesome on large animals like cattle or domestic swine.

  4. MrAtoz says:

    Most of my home town supermarkets when I was a child would slaughter and package venison during deer season. We had an upright freezer in the basement for such purposes.

  5. ech says:

    I gather one can’t easily buy game meat in the US.

    True. Most venison sold in the US is farmed overseas or if domestic is from a non-native species.

  6. MrAtoz says:

    Hilarity as CNN goes all in on the Susan Rice story as fake, ginned up, and “we’re just gonna ignore it and not report.” Now wonder CNN ratings are in the tank. Now I know where BJ Klinton is. Getting a BJ from Don Lemon.

  7. Paul says:

    Radio Shack is going belly up, again, and has mark downs from 20-80%. The 80% is on the multitude of connectors and such they normally carry. I understand they’re shopping for a buyer but no one at the store is holding their breath.

  8. Ray Thompson says:

    Doing one’s own butchery is not difficult, but it is messy

    I am not so sure. When I was a youngen’ on the farm our neighbors had an animal butchered. Truck came to the property, couple of guys. Put down a pail of feed. Shot the animal between the eyes. Quickly backed in the truck, hooked to the back legs and were slitting the neck veins so the blood would drain into a bucket. Started at the top slitting the skin and getting it off, took off the entire head, split the animal into quarters, loaded into the truck (refrigerated), and took off. Total time was probably 20 minutes. Not a trace of anything left on the ground. Impressive to a lad of 14.

  9. Dave says:

    Radio Shack is going belly up, again, and has mark downs from 20-80%. The 80% is on the multitude of connectors and such they normally carry. I understand they’re shopping for a buyer but no one at the store is holding their breath.

    I got some stuff from some of the nearby Radio Shack’s in my area. The closest one hasn’t gone deep discount yet. I picked up another cell phone charging cable, an HDMI cable, an SD card for my digital camera and a cheap drone kit for less than $60.

    There are a couple of items I have my eye on at the closest Radio Shack when they go deep discount. The items are currently $40 to $50, and if they get down to $20, I would be interested. They may be gone before they get to that level.

  10. Dave Hardy says:

    I should check out our local Radio Shack, ’cause they’re closing, too. Dunno offhand if the one down in Burlap is also going down yet.

    And here’s some fun stats to have a laugh about, maybe:

    https://mojavedesertpatriot.wordpress.com/2017/04/03/america-dead-mans-bones/

    I suppose the libtards think this is all swell and to be encouraged and continued.

  11. Dave says:

    I should check out our local Radio Shack, ’cause they’re closing, too. Dunno offhand if the one down in Burlap is also going down yet.

    I think they’re all closing. Some seem to be further in the process than others. The one here in Smallville is at the 20% to 60% discount level when last I checked. The two in Indianapolis are at higher discounts. One that I would have thought was in a “not so bad” part of Indianapolis was already closed, and listed as such in Google already

  12. lynn says:

    https://mojavedesertpatriot.wordpress.com/2017/04/03/america-dead-mans-bones/

    “#38 According to NBC News, one new survey has found that 20 percent of all Millennials identify as LGBTQ.”

    Is this the same survey people who said Hillary was going to win the POTUS election by a wide margin ?

    I don’t trust any surveys anymore. I barely trust elections.

  13. Dave Hardy says:

    Correct, Mr. Lynn; most surveys are bull-chit, and I think we can maybe believe a few of them judging by the corollary evidence before our eyes and ears. I don’t trust elections and haven’t since Nixon versus JFK.

  14. lynn says:

    “Sorry Windows, Android Is the World’s Most Popular OS”
    http://www.pcmag.com/news/352817/sorry-windows-android-is-the-worlds-most-popular-os

    I thought that this had already happened. Wow, look at that closure rate. That is a monumental change. I understand why Microsoft is running so scared now.

  15. Dave Hardy says:

    And that’s just phones and tablets; Linux has been eating their server lunch, too. M$ is strongest on gummint and corporate desktops and laptops. The rest of the world is moving on.

  16. lynn says:

    “The Transition Takes Hold”
    http://cleanenergycanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CEC_TER-Report-Spring-2017_web.pdf

    “A new report, The Transition Takes Hold from Clean Energy Canada predicts that generation costs for large-scale solar power plants are expected to drop by a massive 57 per cent by 2025, with onshore and offshore wind expected to become 26 and 35 per cent cheaper respectively.”

    Massive disruption is going on in our main customers. I need to think about this for a while.

  17. lynn says:

    And that’s just phones and tablets; Linux has been eating their server lunch, too.

    Do you have server usage stats to back that up ?

    And MS / Intel are fighting back against Android / ARM. My daughters new fliptop is an awesome piece of technology. Look, demand is up, Big River just raised the price $50 to $748.
    https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-ZenBook-Flip-UX360CA-DBM2T-13-3/dp/B01GHQOD8U/

  18. lynn says:

    “”Trump Administration Considers Far-Reaching Steps for ‘Extreme Vetting’
    Foreigners entering U.S. could be forced to hand over phones, answer questions on ideology; changes could apply to allies like France and Germany”
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-considers-far-reaching-steps-for-extreme-vetting-1491303602

    I foresee throw down phones.

  19. Dave Hardy says:

    “Do you have server usage stats to back that up ?”

    Such as they are, currently; they seem to cover public-facing servers but a whole chit-ton more are not public or on the net and they’re running UNIX or Linux and have been for a while now. During my time at IBM we had, between here and the upstate NY data centers, hundreds of racked servers running RHEL, none of them on the net.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

  20. Dave Hardy says:

    “I foresee throw down phones.”

    And no doubt the usual suspects on the Left and in the MSM, but I repeat myself, are screaming about racism and xenophobia and Islamophobia, etc., etc. As for allies like France, Germany or the UK? Hell, they took in countless musloids, mostly single males of military age, and they got citizenship. So we’re not supposed to vet them when come here? Not to mention the chit-ton of young males of military age and of the musloid persuasion already here!

  21. CowboySlim says:

    Well, in the last 50 years I have spent hundreds of hours 4WD’g and sightseeing in the Mojave Desert and I’ve never heard of that patriot; consequently, I cannot comment of the veracity of the commentary.

    OTOH, I did look at his headphone music and am in complete agreement with his listings of the music of Michael Maritn Murphey. Actually, I have that very same MMM CD that he has listed (among a number of his other CDs) and had it autographed by MMM at one of the two of his concerts that I attended.

    Outside of that, I am totally devoid of hip-hop and rap media.

    Thanks for the reference, OFD.

  22. CowboySlim says:

    I will add one other note regarding the Mojave Desert Patriot, he does include our constitution which commences with: “We the people of the United States……”

    Now when the judges claim the tRump Executive Order limiting access as unconstitutional on grounds of religious freedom/persecution, one would think that they read it as: “We the people of the United States, Latin America and all the war stricken West Asian tyrannies and hellholes…..”

    Really, if tRump added Norway to the list, would these ahole judges say that he is discriminating against Lutherans?

  23. nick flandrey says:

    I was involved in the MMM Westfest event the year it was in San Bernadino. Not the highest grossing one of his events. That was the time I realized, “yes, as a matter of fact, this is my first rodeo.”

    n

  24. nick flandrey says:

    Speaking of HEB, just back from my 2 – 3 weekly trip. Spent $242 and saved $13 on onsale items, and $15 with instore coupons.

    This trip includes 20 days worth of breakfast sausage, and 6 pounds of bacon, so it’s a bit high as neither was on sale. One week fresh veg. Bone on ribeye (select) was $5/pound and looked and felt great.

    Some adds to the storage food, but there weren’t any great can deals. I did get some Uncle Bens pouch flavored rice, buy 2 get one. Some soup, some other normal replacement stuff.

    Need to hit Costco for daily use stuff, like eggs milk and cream. I’m probably good for another week, but if I have the time……

    n

    Spent a half hour breaking down some bulk. Steaks got seasoned and vac packed for the freezer, each individually. Lamb roast split in half, 3# tonite, 3# vac pac for the freezer. Costco chicken leg pouches divided and frozen. Bacon split into one pound pacs, vac and freeze….

    n

  25. ech says:

    Radio Shack is going belly up, again, and has mark downs from 20-80%.

    Not all stores are closing. Here is a list.

  26. Dave Hardy says:

    Thanks for that link, Mr. ech; however it shows the Burlap and St. Johnsbury stores as closing but not the one up here in Retroville (Snarlbinz), but the one up here has a “CLOSING” sign up. I’ll stop in there tomorrow and ask ’em wussup accordingly, and see if I need any cheap electronics chit.

  27. CowboySlim says:

    I can’t take advantage of the Radio Shack closing markdowns. There were two within two miles of my house, but both of those closed in the first wave several years ago.

  28. MrAtoz says:

    I’m feeling transracial, biotches. You owe me reparations.

  29. Dave Hardy says:

    “Reparations?”

    “‘e said “reparations!”

    “It were reparations like us that built this bloody empire!”

    With a tip ‘o the hat to Mrs. Malaprop.

  30. Dave says:

    The Smallville Radio Shack is not on the closing list, but everything in the store is 20% to 60% off. There is a lare banner in the window saying everything must go. I suspect when that list was published, Radio Shack was trying to keep some stores open and then realized that was not possible.

  31. nick flandrey says:

    Already visited my local, but it wasn’t down enough.

    I’ll check it out again. Nothing like getting $6 RF adapters for $1 or spools of copper wire for less than scrap value.

    Too bad all the radios and antennas are gone.

    n

  32. lynn says:

    And the USPS carrier just showed up to pick up a kit. I was expecting Lori, but she had a new substitute running this part of her route this morning. Tina, a nice young woman, is learning Lori’s route so that she can work as a substitute when Lori’s off.

    You are lucky ! Our office is an RFD route and uses private contractors. Our regular guy, Lawrence, is awesome. But he had surgery earlier this year and the replacement guy could not figure out where our office mailbox was. The mailbox that is right across the parking lot from the office building. So, he put our mail in the neighbors mailbox on MY road and MY land. After a few days and some notes and phone calls, he finally came to the office front door to deliver a package. The package had our mail for a FEW days. Would it have been so hard for my neighbor to drop off the mail ? I guess she was teaching him how to fish rather than feeding him.

    I really need to get the neighbors to move their mailboxes off my land. It has probably been that way for 20+ years though. Entropy is tough. Or, I may need to move our mailbox to the road so that all of the mailboxes on our road owned by ME are least at the same place so future newbies do not get confused.

    BTW, I own the road, 1/4 mile long, part asphalt, part gravel, but there is a 30 foot permanent public easement on my land for it so the neighbors can get back to their properties.
    https://www.google.com/maps/place/29%C2%B032'11.8%22N+95%C2%B039'59.0%22W/

  33. H. Combs says:

    Clean Energy Canada
    Canada is a bad place for solar because it’s latitude reduces the maximum possible input. And solar production isn’t the big cost, it’s the storage that really costs.

  34. Dave Hardy says:

    And from the quill of Uncle Remus:

    http://www.woodpilereport.com/html/index-472.htm

    Lots of good stuff.

    Pax vobiscum, fratres…

  35. lynn says:

    Clean Energy Canada
    Canada is a bad place for solar because it’s latitude reduces the maximum possible input. And solar production isn’t the big cost, it’s the storage that really costs.

    Solar and Wind are cool as long as you have a gas turbine on standby to make power. Texas had a massive cold front come thru in the middle of the night about 5 ? 8 ? years ago, dropping from 80 F to 20 F in a couple of hours. Most of the wind turbines went from generators to motors as they were turning from South to North. And then a couple of the fossil units tripped off as they were racing to catch the load. Texas were in a load shedding stage 3 ? 4 ? alert at 4 am in the morning, blacking out neighborhoods everywhere. Those wind turbines stay at constant speed, otherwise they have to desynchronize from the system. They just vary the pitch on the blades to vary the power generation.

    Now, ERCOT knows that when the wind turbines are providing 40% of the power generation, when a cold front comes through, they have to have additional fossil power spinning and staffed. BTW, the Texas grid has not been down since 1954 ? 1956 ?. Quite a record there.

  36. lynn says:

    The wife got out 14.5 year old British Cocker Spaniel, Lady, trimmed today at the Vet. The groomer cut off almost six inches of hair. Lady has dropped more weight, 2 lbs, since last October when she was 34 lbs. We have been her giving lots of good (people) food, gravy on her kibble, plenty of treats. She is just starting to fade away as she is now two years past the average cocker spaniel life expectancy. She has no fat on her whatsoever as you can count her ribs now. At her peak, she was up to 38 lbs.

    Lady cannot walk the two miles with us every night now. So I bought her a sag wagon. She starts out in it but wants out after a half mile so so. She will not stay in it when I put her back in though.
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BUUUIGK/

    I may have to rethink this as pulling that wagon with her in it up the pathways is kinda tough on my shoulders. I may break down and buy the doggie stroller instead. Pushing may be much easier.
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LV3KBNG/

    So, bringing this into the prepping space, if I had to walk home after a national event such as an EMP, I would rather have a push cart than a pull wagon. I think that the push cart would be much easier on your shoulders.

  37. lynn says:

    “How North Korea could kill 90 percent of Americans”
    http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/defense/326094-how-north-korea-could-kill-up-to-90-percent-of-americans-at-any

    “Two North Korean satellites, the KMS-3 and KMS-4, presently orbit over the U.S. on trajectories consistent with surprise EMP attack.”

    Why are we screwing around with this psycho ?

    Hat tip to OFD and The Woodpile Report.
    http://www.woodpilereport.com/html/index-472.htm

  38. Spook says:

    ”’So, bringing this into the prepping space, if I had to walk home after a national event such as an EMP, I would rather have a push cart than a pull wagon. I think that the push cart would be much easier on your shoulders.”’

    Another reason the homeless choose shopping carts?

  39. nick flandrey says:

    I think the main reason is they’re free.

    Pushing only works on unbroken pavement. Anything else you want to pull, or you need big tires. There are good reasons wagon wheels were 4 ft or more across, smooths out all the little bumps.

    n

  40. brad says:

    “#38 According to NBC News, one new survey has found that 20 percent of all Millennials identify as LGBTQ.”

    This actually wouldn’t surprise me, for certain areas of the US (cough, California, cough). Not that 20% of those populations is gay – that is likely steady at around 2% or so. However, some people pick a cause and rabidly support it for whatever reason, and heterosexuals in this category will have ticked the box.

    Then you get the people who are mentally ill, in one way or another. That may be brain-developmental, chemical (brain-chemistry ala depression) or purely psychological issues. Transgenders apparently suffer from a pre-natal brain-development problem, although this is quite rare.

    However, in super-progressive places like California, it’s apparently “in” to be transgender, gender fluid, or some other cocktail term. So lots of people with other mental issues seem to be jumping on the bandwagon. It’s trendy, gets them lots of “victim” attention, and lets them avoid whatever real issues they have, at least for a while.

  41. nick flandrey says:

    Either that or the people that demonize BPA and soy, and other estrogen – analogs in food are right….

    n

  42. MrAtoz says:

    #38 According to NBC News, one new survey has found that 20 percent of all Millennials identify as LGBTQ.

    And, Barry Manilow comes out as Gay.

  43. ech says:

    Two North Korean satellites, the KMS-3 and KMS-4, presently orbit over the U.S. on trajectories consistent with surprise EMP attack.

    Just about any satellite in low Earth orbit is on a trajectory that can be used for an EMP attack. Both of the satellites are tumbling, so probably don’t work. They had masses of 100 and 200 kg, not enough for a Nork nuke.

    Much ado about not much. The more important part is the fact that they could use this rocket to loft a primitive nuke at Alaska, Hawaii, or possibly parts of the Pacific Northwest.

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